Archive for
December, 2010

One of my favourite methods for fishing trout, well really any fish, is using my fly rod and artificial flies. I also tie most of my own flies. For me that’s just part of fly fishing. There’s just something extra in fishing when you make your own flies and lures.

Some of these flies are so tiny that I am amazed every single time I hook into a brook trout with them. Others are bigger and some are ones I actually use for fly fishing Atlantic salmon, Smallmouth bass and Chain pickerel. I do like to use a lot of top water flies, just to watch the action when I get a strike. It’s so cool and makes me keep coming back for more.

When I am fishing new water I always take both my spinning rod and fly rod. That way if the terrain is too tough to get a fly rod through I can use my spinning rod but most places I go I tend to be able to use my fly rod. I also must admit I don’t do that well on those windy days so the spinning rod does come in very handy.

Flies I Use To Catch Brook Trout

I like tying my own trout flies for those days on the water and I never go with anything complicated so even if you never tied an artificial fly you would be able to put one of these together.

Most often, almost 100% of the time I use dry flies. It’s just so much fun watching them take it from the surface of the water, but every once in a while I will use a wet fly, a streamer or even a nymph to get below the surface if they aren’t taking anything from the surface.

My personal favourite dry, wet and streamer trout flies:

Dry Flies – Hair Wing Dry Flies – size 8-18

Gray Wulff

White Wulff

Irrisistible

Dry Flies – Fan Wing – size 10-20

Adams

Royal Coachman Fanwing

Dark Hendrickson

Other Trout Dry Flies I Use

Misquito size 10-20

Brown Bivisible sizes 10-20

Brown Hackle Peacock sizes 12-20

Wet Flies

Black and Grizzly Weighted Wooly Worm – size 2-10

Coachman Lead Wing Wet Fly sizes 12 -18

March Brown English Wet Fly sizes 10-14

Streamers For Brook Trout

Mickey Finn – size – 6-10

White Maribou Streamer sizes 10-14

Black Woolly Bugger – size – 6-10

Brook trout fishing, whether on your spinning rod or fly rod is a great hobby but always think conservation for our children and their children. Practice CPR – Catch, Photograph and Release.

Note there is nothing wrong with eating a few trout. I love to keep a few for dinner in the early spring when the water is still ice cold here. They taste great but for the rest of the year I always release them unless I hurt them during the fight and know they won’t survive.

I’m always looking for flies I can fish for multiple species on and the Krystowski Minnow looks like it will definitely do the job. I am going to give this fly a try for some smallmouth bass and chain pickerel next year and see what kind of action I get.

I will start by tying it as it is in the video and then I also want to change a couple of colours to red and white as I have a great amount of luck using flies and lures with those colours.

Tying The Krystowski Minnow

Tying The Krystowski Minnow

The Story Behind The Krystowski Minnow

“The Krystowski Minnow is one of my early original fly designs. I began tying this fly long before I was part of the fly fishing industry and a contract fly designer. It was at a point in my life when I had very limited time to spend behind a vise and, more influentially, when I had very little money to spend on tying material. I needed an all-purpose baitfish streamer that I could use for every occasion. I could not afford to have multiple fly boxes for every species of fish, but I was fishing everywhere and often. I needed a fly for river smallmouth, farm pond largemouth, Spring steelhead, Fall browns, wiper, walleye and northern pike. If I had a handful of Krystowski Minnows in my box I was all set. The fly needed to be cheap to tie, fast to tie and never fall apart…even after being chewed on by northern pike. I have old fishing buddies back in my home town who fish this fly over everything else. The fly is named after a family in northern Ohio who owned a small bass pond and would let me fish and invite me in for dinner. The earliest prototypes of this fly were fished in their pond” — Jay Zimmerman (Colorado Fly Fishing Reports )

Step 2 : Tie in a clump of white Icelandic Sheep to “bottom” of hook shank.

Step 3 : Tie in a clump of chartreuse Icelandic Sheep on “top” side of hook shank.

Step 4 : Securely mount ex-small white painted lead dumbbell eyes to “bottom” of hook shank. It is important that you wait until this point to tie in the lead eyes. Because the eyes are ex-small (this fly fishes best as a light-weight streamer) it is crucial there be distance between the arbor of the lead eyes and the hook shank. This ensures the fly swims hook point up.

Step 5 : Tie in a clump of black Icelandic Sheep on top. Be sure to leave several inches of the black sheep hair extending out past the hook eye.

Step 6 : Take the black sheep hair clump that you left extending past the hook eye and part it evenly. Be sure to leave the thread at the rear of the fly head.

Step 7 : Wrap each piece of the black sheep hair back separately (being sure to cross between the lead eyes) and tie off and trim.

Step 8 : Wrap black tying thread thoroughly over entire head of fly, being sure to secure any loose sheep hair and give the entire head an overall tightening. Then whip finish twice for durability and trim thread.

Step 9 : Cut fly down to 2 ½ inches long (trim up the end nice and tapered). Then apply multiple coats of head cement over entire head, to include the painted lead eyes. I prefer at least five coats of Hard-as-Hull.